Pablo Cerdera is a Restorative Justice (RJ) Practitioner and Educator and serves as the Deputy Director of Restorative Practices at the University of Pennsylvania. They live on the Indigenous territory known as Lenapehoking, the traditional homelands of the Lenape or Delaware People, in what is now called West Philadelphia. They are committed to sharing the restorative approach and firmly believe in the power to transform harm, promote meaningful accountability, and develop strong and healthy communities through this approach.

In this heartfelt conversation, Pablo and I get into:

• how grief manifests when we are "intellectualizers"
• the breakdown of their last relationship and how it forced them to grapple with the fact that their brain can’t make all the choices
• the gift of having friends who can receive and sit with our ugliness
• the Ojibwa/Anishinaabe medicine circle that they were taught and their orientation to body, mind, heart and spirit

• neglecting body in the relationship, through skin and muscles “you’re not with me”. Looking at self and not recognizing self.

• the difference between choosing to listen to grief and not having a choice

• their parallel griefs as an anti-zionist Jewish person around the unfolding genocide in Gaza

• the ways that grief and trauma can make people turn inwards that can lead them to make harmful decisions and how generational trauma blinds people to reality.
• The way that grief work helped them access anger

• Voice, song and sound as both expression of and expulsion of grief and how doing it in community shows what is available
• How grief helped move them from being in denial of their spirituality towards a deep relationship with their jewish religion and spirituality

• Spirit as is the truth of connection and the tug in their chest

To support this podcast, sign up for ⁠⁠⁠⁠regular bonus episodes⁠⁠⁠⁠ for 4.99/month

To stay connected to me and my work, follow me on Instagram and Tiktok @moveyourgrief and subscribe to my substack, ⁠⁠the Middle Place⁠⁠.

In this heart opening conversation with Ruthann Gagnon, we explore:

• What heart forward grief feels like
• What it means to respect the process of the the body and the gems we've gathered from the caves of grief
• How and why experiencing grief as an intelligent litmus test of the depth and safety of relationships
• Being sangry (sad + angry) about how grief is so feared in this culture
• How embodiment grows self compassion, love and forgiveness for ourselves and others
• Doing nothing and un-tooling as integration practice
• Working out for the emotional body
• How working for herself opens up the space to feel grief and her daily prayer for meeting it
• What becomes possible when we make a practice of sitting with and stepping through the void/wreath of grief

Ruthann has spent much of her career strategizing and catalyzing creative efforts through organized, thoughtful and collaborative architecture. With two decades of retreat, workshop and event production, she comes the logistical experience to create experiences, alongside the deeper emotional and creative skills to help other find the radiance and confidence needed to execute ideas into reality. She is also extremely passionate about the power of culinary creativity and integrates cooking into her work wherever she can. She currently works with individuals, groups and companies as a creative strategist and ideas architect and is also the co-founder of DEIcipher, a consulting group focused on embodied DEI initiatives in the wellness industry and beyond.

You can connect with Ruthann and her work at https://www.deicipher.com/ and on IG @rubygagnon

To support this podcast, you can subscribe, share it and sign up for ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠regular bonus episodes⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ for 4.99/month

To stay connected to me and my work, follow me on Instagram and Tiktok @moveyourgrief and subscribe to my substack, ⁠⁠⁠the Middle Place⁠⁠⁠.

Thanks for being.

In this sweet conversation with my dear soul sister Morgan, we dive into:

• the holiness of holding something that’s painful
• the way that grief quiets the self and expands the senses and literal physiology
• the surrender that grief demands and the growth towards vulnerability, growth and connection to the collective suffering that this surrender allows when it is given the space to move
• the sisterly currents of grief and creativity-both carry God, and are a source of inner guidance that she continues to court
• how her journey with physical pain tested her relationship to spirit and how she found her way back the elastic malleability of this lifelong relationship
• the way that physical pain and grief work as sharpening agents and clarify other relationships
• and how daily dipping in the cold Maine ocean grew her capacity to be with discomfort

Morgan Mitchell is a Creatress. Her work seeks to nurture well-being and wonder through experimental art and nourishing creative community experiences. You can stay connected with her through instagram @morganmitchellcreates and through her website morganmitchell.co

To support this podcast, sign up for ⁠⁠⁠regular bonus episodes⁠⁠⁠ for 4.99/month

To stay connected to me and my work, follow me on Instagram and Tiktok @moveyourgrief and subscribe to my substack, ⁠the Middle Place⁠.

Thanks for being.